April 14th, 1912
by CSIGurlie07
Summary: It was the ship of dreams, but is remembered through history as a tragic nightmare. What did the Titanic mean to Helen Magnus? Rated T.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This is my first Sanctuary fanfiction. I've had it in my back pocket for a while, ever since I made the mistake of watching Titanic on TBS right after rewatching the episode Next Tuesday on my PC._

_SPOILER ALERT: Anything Season 2. Especially "End of Nights" and "Next Tuesday".  
_

_Again, this is my first Sanctuary fic, so please read and review. I'd love to get some constructive criticism on this._

_Thanks for reading, and enjoy!_

* * *

The first thing she was aware of was the cold.

Icy, black cold pressed in around her, filling her lungs with sharp stabs of pain. Fear pulled at her, dragging her down into the inky depths. In the darkness, she saw flashes of white dart across her vision. It was several crushing moments before she realized that the flashes were people, pale human skin that seemed to glow as they fought to surface.

But, like her, they could not fight the fierce current drawing them down, deeper and deeper towards certain death.

Suddenly, through the shadowed depths, she saw a face she recognized.

Terrified blue eyes stared at her through swirling strands of pale blonde hair. Long arms reached for the surface, for her, but despite their strength they could not fight the pull of the water.

She watched as her daughter's lips parted in a silent scream as she sank, following the hundreds of others who had gone down, hands reaching for her mother, her last hope for survival.

Her chest burned for air, even as she struggled to dive after the younger woman. Her awareness began to dim just as her fingertips brushed the reaching hands, but as if on cue the force pulling her deeper relented, and her life jacket swiftly yanked her away.

Her head finally broke the surface, but she only realized when her body instinctively purged the water from her lungs. The air above the water was just as frigid as the ocean, and she could feel her skin losing sensation as the water on her head and face began to freeze in the night air.

The memory of her daughter's watery death almost instantly began to fade as the morbid reality of her situation set in.

All around her, people were flailing in the water, struggling desperately to stay afloat. Even those wearing life jackets were reduced to violent panic, pulling at those around them to fight the now dissipating suction of the sinking vessel. She focused on them, to distract herself from her own discomfort and fear. Screams echoed across the irreverently calm water, calling for help and loved ones.

She was just about to drown out the cacophony when the nearby cry of a single child tore at her heart, sparking the maternal instinct so newly installed in the pit of her stomach. She swirled in the water, scanning the crowd around her for the source of the terrified calls. A moment later, she spied a young boy, no older than six, splashing some twenty feet from her.

But even as she watched, the boy suddenly disappeared from view, as he was forced under by the large paws of a drowning man pulling at his life jacket.

Fighting the fatigue encroaching with the pervasive cold, she swam to the boy with all the urgency she could muster. Before she realized what she was doing she was pulling at the man's hands, trying to pry his fingers away even as she tried to keep the boy afloat.

The man yelled at her in an unintelligible slur of protest, but when one hand disengaged from the boy to strike her, she reacted instinctively. Her hand flew up and collided with his cheek, the impact sending needles of pain through her numbed fingers. The man recoiled in shock and sudden pain at the attack, letting loose a panicked cry of surprise.

It seemed to wake him up, however, for he looked down at the boy, and released him with a jerk. As the boy came up spluttering and sobbing, the man faded into the darkness, and she let him go, not sparing him another glance.

She pulled the child into her arms as best she could, allowing her life jacket to take most of her weight as she quickly checked the boy for wounds. Her medical training gave her a brief reprieve from the horror of the evening, and she felt her heart unclench ever so slightly when she discovered he was unharmed. But then the boy looked into her eyes, and the stark terror staring up at her reminded her that they were far from safe.

The water would kill them if they remained where they were. They needed to get out of the water as soon as possible, the doctor in her chided, but the life rafts could just be seen in the distance, and she knew she could not wait for them to return, if they did so at all.

Somehow, she managed to push a few words of comfort past her numb and shivering lips, and though the boy did seem to trust her—evidenced by his small arms clutching her tightly—it was obvious she failed to chase away his terror. She did not blame him in the least… her own fear was slowly growing with each passing moment.

But she pushed her own panic back, focusing instead on the life she now held in her hands.

In an instant, she knew what she had to do. She had to get them to the lifeboats, and out of the water.

Glancing at the winking lights in the suddenly unfathomable distance, it was evident they hadn't moved any closer since the ship had disappeared.

She would have to swim.

A few more words to the boy had his arms looping tightly around her neck as he settled on her back, leaving her arms free. And then, with stiff, jerking movements she began to pull them both through the freezing water. Her limbs were sluggish and nearly unresponsive, but her familiarity with the motions born by years of practice paid off, and slowly she drew them away from the mass of wailing souls.

But soon enough, their progress slowed as her muscles began to fall unresponsive under the deadening effect of the bone-chilling cold. Her breath caught painfully in her chest, and more than once her mouth and nose dipped below the water line, her throat and nose burning painfully as she choked on the saltwater she could not keep from inhaling.

But the pain served to wake her up each time her eyes unwillingly began to drift shut. She knew her time was running short, because she could no longer hear the cries and sobs of the forsaken souls still stranded behind them.

If not for the boy's weight against her back, no doubt she too would have fallen victim to the cold, drifted off to sleep to never wake again.

When she had the presence of mind to do so, she tried to keep her body as level as possible, in order to limit the boy's exposure to the frigid water. Even so, she knew he would not fare much better in the night air, which was equally dangerous through his drenched and frozen clothes.

She had no idea how close they had come to the huddle of life rafts.

Her vision had not been clear for some time now, her lashes so laden with ice as they were. She had lost all sensation, to the point where she often had to pat the arms around her neck for several long moments before she was certain the boy was still on her back.

Slowly, tortuously, her eyes blinked with longer and longer frequency. The doctor in her knew what was happening, but she was powerless to stop herself from drifting closer and closer to her final sleep. Even as her vision darkened, and her movements stilled, her mind stirred into a panic.

But there was nothing she could do, even as she willed herself to move, to live…

To survive.

The next thing she knew, a hand was clamping onto her shoulder, yanking her out of the darkness. Shock coursed through her at the sudden assault on her senses, and to her surprise, her body responded in an instant, their former lethargy gone.

"Maggie?" her own voice sounded loud in her ears, too loud.

She opened her eyes to look for her would-be savior, but her sight was filled with a blur of images she could make no sense of. The ocean was gone, she knew that much, and that threw her enough to make it difficult to reclaim her equilibrium.

Muffled sounds drifted across her awareness, but then suddenly her ears roared and a voice rang out in near-panic.

"MAGNUS!"

Her vision cleared in an instant, and she sat up in violent reaction as the world came rushing back to her.

She was not in a life raft. She was not in the ocean, and she was not wearing a life jacket. Her skin wasn't blue, and her blonde curls were not crusted with ice.

Rather, she was in a hotel room in New Orleans, after having been found and rescued by a passing Coast Guard helicopter. She was lying on a plush bed, and, though still tangled from having been in the water for hours, her brown locks were dry and warm.

But still, her sense of panic and shock didn't abate, and when a hand brushed hers, she jerked away in violent reflex.

"Whoa, hey," a gentle voice said softly. "Magnus, it's okay…"

She looked up warily, and found a familiar face staring back in concern. "Will?"

He smiled in relief. "Yeah," he huffed lightly. "That's good. I was afraid you'd forgotten my name."

Surely he meant it as a joke, but her only reaction was confusion as she tried to shake off the remnants of her shock. "What?"

"You were asking for a Maggie a minute ago." Will's eyes searched hers, looking for answers to questions he had yet to pose to her. She looked away from him, slowly taking a steadying breath. Her heart was racing, and if she moved her head a certain way, her vision still tilted alarmingly. "You okay?" he asked.

She hesitated, but then quickly shook her head to dismiss his concern. "I'm fine," she uttered softly.

"You sure?" Obviously, he didn't quite believe her.

"It was just a nightmare, Will," she responded curtly. Her panic had faded, but had left her feeling on edge. Her tone reflected it, and she hoped Will would hear it and know to let it go. "Nothing more," she added, almost as an afterthought.

"Seemed like a pretty bad one," he observed, watching her intently as she stood and abandoned the bed.

Apparently, she'd been too exhausted after their arrival at the hotel to bother changing out of the clothes the Coast Guard had given her, for she was still fully garbed in the mint green scrubs that had been provided them both. Her feet were bare though, and she enjoyed the tactile sensation of the carpet under her toes as she strode to the window.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he continued, standing as well. Thankfully, however, he kept his distance.

"No." Impatience colored her tone, as she realized he was not going to let her off so easy.

She could only imagine what was going through the psychologist's mind now, seeing her so uneasy after a nightmare. It was doubtful he would chalk it up to the fatigue they were both bound to have after the day they'd had.

More likely he was jumping to post-traumatic stress, or searching through the little tidbits she'd told him about her past 158 years, looking for anything that could leave her so rattled and off-balance.

"Look, sometimes it helps—"

"I assure you, Doctor Zimmerman, there is absolutely nothing to concern yourself over," she delivered bluntly. "It was a nightmare brought on by exhaustion, and that is all." Her tone was fierce, almost angry, and effectively ended any further dialogue between them.

Or so she had hoped.

But Will cut off her path of escape when he placed himself between her and her intended destination—the bathroom. His eyes glinted in the afternoon light, and she realized quickly that instead of intimidating him, she had merely sparked his indignation.

"I thought we were done with that crap, Magnus," he said sharply. "We agreed—"

"Things are different now, Will!" She hated raising her voice, but her own temper had taken control. "My daughter is dead, and we are not trapped within the Nautilus. There are things I would rather not discuss, and you would do well to leave them well enough alone!"

And with that, she stormed past him, their shoulders colliding as she did so.

He didn't follow her, and a moment later the bathroom door slammed behind her, leaving a stunned and speechless protégée in her wake.


	2. Chapter 2

"Come now, ladies, put your backs into it!"

The screams and cries for help were fading, and Maggie Brown knew it was only a matter of time before they stopped altogether. And that eventuality scared the tar out of her.

Without the lights of the Titanic reflecting off the surface of the water, the night around them was pitch black, too dark to see a foot in front of her own nose.

The small lantern in their life raft was hardly effective in cutting a swath through the blackness, and they only had one electric torch in their possession, and its range was limited. They had little more to use for guidance in getting to the other survivors than the very cries themselves, and the sound of splashing drifting from the night ahead of them.

Maggie was so intent on her mission to reach the foundering passengers that she almost missed the small puff of air that appeared just off the port side of the raft's bow. She called out, but the boat slid past before she had a chance to see if she had seen for truth.

She grabbed a hand torch, and carefully scanned the waters they had just traversed. There.

An unrecognizable shape was briefly lit in the thin beam of the torch. It was several moments before Maggie realized that it was not one, but two bodies pressed together. One was a boy—the breath of air she'd seen had not been his. And the other—a tight curl of blonde hair glinted beneath a sheen of ice.

"My God," she whispered. "Turn the boat around! There's a survivor in the water! Turn it around!"

Somehow, they managed to do so, and in moments Maggie was scrambling to help pull the frozen figure into the boat. They detached the child with a sickening crunch of ice, but it was the deathly pallor of an all too familiar face that turned Maggie's stomach.

"Helen," she whispered, pressing a gloved hand against her friend's cheek. Gingerly, she brushed the tiny crystals that clung to the doctor's lashes and brow. Then, in growing panic, her fingers tapped the woman's cheeks sharply. "Helen, wake up!" she demanded. There was a twitch of movement beneath her closed eyes, and Maggie pressed more fervently. "Helen!"

Blue eyes flew open, darting around wildly in panic. Almost immediately she began to cough and choke, though only a small amount of water was brought forth from her lungs. What concerned Maggie more, though, was that Helen was not shivering.

"Helen…" For the first time in her life, Maggie Brown was at a loss—she had no idea how to help her friend. Helen would know, doctor that she was, but one look at the blue eyes that rolled in their sockets as she fought to remain conscious was all it took to know that the woman was far from coherent.

"Strip her."

The voice came from an unexpected source—the Fifth Officer formerly in charge of their raft, who had initially been against their return to the survivors.

"I beg your pardon?" Maggie queried incredulously. The presumption—

"She's too far gone to stay in those wet clothes," the officer continued. "Her only chance is to get dry and to get warm. You first class types have more than enough furs to maintain her dignity, I'm sure."

Convention mandated she put up more of a protest for her friend's privacy, but Maggie had never been one for convention. In an instant, she knew he was right. With her voice returned with her determination, she looked to the other women watching in shocked silence.

"Help me remove her clothes," she ordered firmly.

There was only a moment of hesitation, before a moan from Helen spurred them into action.

With shivering, jerking movements they scrabbled at buttons and hooks, until their unwitting patient was all but naked. But Maggie was only the first to wrap her warm, fur coat around her friend—more women quickly followed suit, and Helen was soon bundled quite snugly.

Even so, Maggie's heart twisted at the idea that such measures still might not be enough.

By now the officer had warmed to their task of locating other survivors in the water, and with a nod to Maggie, he took charge of the operation, leaving Maggie to focus entirely on her friend. With all the grace of a peg-legged pony she sat in the bottom of the boat, pulling Helen's still form onto her lap.

She channeled her nervous, desperate energy into vigorously rubbing Helen's body through the furs, in an attempt to encourage blood flow and warmth. For several minutes, the doctor remained unresponsive, and only the occasional puff of air emanating from between blue-tinged lips assured Maggie she was still alive.

But finally, to Maggie's elation, the body in her arms began to tremble. She was shivering—a good sign.

"That's it, Helen, you fight," she murmured in a hushed voice. "You'll make it through this. The world hasn't gotten its fill of you yet."

If the doctor heard any of it, she gave no indication. Blue eyes remained shut, and the only movement was the quivering of her muscles as her body fought to heat itself.

Maggie's attention remained solely on Helen Magnus until a silver flask was thrust into her line of vision. "Try this," a disembodied voice suggested.

She looked up to see the fifth officer offering the spirits to her. When she arched a skeptical brow at him, he motioned towards Helen. "It'll warm her from the inside," he said. He grinned. "Burns on the way down at the very least."

Maggie warily took the flask. Looking at it for a moment, she finally shrugged. "I suppose it couldn't do any more harm at this point."

Her fingers struggled to unscrew the cap, numbed as they were, but she was patient. She glanced towards the stern of the raft. "How many more have we saved?" she asked solemnly.

The officer's expression darkened. "Only two more," he replied. His eyes lowered in shame. "We are too late."

Maggie could hear the guilt in his voice, and a half hour earlier, she might have let him have it for his hand in prolonging their trek to rescue the others. But now, she merely looked at Helen, who was shivering even more violently in her arms. "Then that makes three who now have more of a chance than they did fifteen minutes ago," she said softly.

Finally, she succeeded in opening the flask. Disregarding the officer's presence once more, Maggie carefully lifted the metal canister to Helen's lips, and slowly let the liquid pour into her mouth. For a tenuous moment, nothing happened.

But then Helen's throat spasmed violently in reflex against the unexpected onslaught of the drink, and in the next instant the doctor was choking, hacking on the foul spirits. But to Maggie's delight, she spied a flash of blue as her friend's eyes opened briefly before sliding closed once more.

"No, Helen, wake up!" Maggie instructed forcefully, giving the doctor a brisk shake of the shoulders. Helen's eyes opened again, and through no small effort managed to focus on Maggie. "Helen, can you hear me?"

Helen blinked sluggishly. "M—Ma—Margaret…" Her name was almost lost in the doctor's struggle to speak through the vicious shivers that quaked through her. Her breath was coming in short puffs of air now, and it almost seemed as if it pained her to do so.

Maggie gave the most winning smile she could muster. "Now, what've I told you about using that name?"

But the humor was lost on Helen, who did not smile or laugh like she usually would. Blue eyes rolled before squeezing tightly shut against what Maggie could only assume was a dizzying swirl of vision.

But a tug on her sleeve caught her attention—looking down she saw a pale, slender hand had emerged from the swathe of coats wrapped around Helen. Without a second thought, Maggie clasped the reaching fingers with her own. Even through her gloves, she could feel the chill of Helen's hand, and a shudder coursed its way down her spine.

"Everything will be all right now, Helen," she said softly, though she knew her friend would not hear her. "Everything is going to be all right."

As Helen's eyes drifted shut once more, Maggie settled down to wait. There was nothing more she could do. The officer had already returned the raft to where the others had been strung together, and they could only sit and hope that another ship had seen or heard the ship's distress, and would come to rescue them. But the interim was daunting, and Maggie's own fears were pushed aside in favor of worrying for Helen, whose condition only seemed to worsen as the hours passed. She failed to open her eyes again, and before long the heavy shivering was interrupted by long bouts of bone-rattling coughs that nearly seemed to tear her body apart.

Finally, in the wee hours of the morn, rescue came in the form of the RMS Carpathia. As one of the few rafts who had passengers plucked from the waters, their raft was given priority. Under Maggie's careful eye, two sailors from the Carpathia helped carry Helen onto the liner. There, several women stepped forward to take over, quickly noting the doctor's state of undress.

Maggie followed them to the infirmary, despite the fuss they tried to make over her as well. She wasn't injured, and belowdecks the insulated air was working quickly to chase away the cold—there was nothing that could prevent her from helping her friend.

To her approval, one of the women who had taken charge of Helen was a nurse—she knew how to help the doctor, and she commanded an authority that got Helen into dry clothes and under the covers of an infirmary cot in a matter of minutes.

Throughout the process, Maggie found herself unable to leave. And once Helen was installed comfortably under the blankets, Maggie was at her bedside.

She couldn't explain her attachment—she had only met the doctor a matter of days ago. Perhaps it had been their mutual social misfit that had drawn them together, or maybe the rare intelligent conversation Maggie found in her company, but it was as if they had known each other for years.

There was something utterly approachable about the blonde Briton, for all her seclusion and secrecy, and Maggie had been drawn to it like a moth to flame.

It was two days aboard the Carpathia before Helen fully woke. She was even able to sit up, though her eyes remained clouded by shock and disorientation. It was an unusual sight, for Helen's eyes had always been clear and bright, always sharply focused on something around her. But when Maggie finally took her leave to let Helen get her rest, it was only a matter of minutes before she realized the doctor had followed her to the promenade.

Maggie watched as dull blue eyes passed over the hunched forms huddled under blankets, sitting or standing wherever there was room. Helen's features were unreadable, but to Maggie it seemed that she was struggling to focus, to determine where she was needed most.

It was while Helen was surveying the deck that Maggie realized that Helen was far from decent—the shift she was wearing was little more than a nightgown, and though she had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, her feet were bare.

What was the most disconcerting was that Helen didn't even seem to notice the cold.

Maggie carefully approached her, and reached out to brush a hand across her shoulder. Absurdly, Maggie realized that with her in her boots and Helen flatfooted, they were nearly the same height.

"Come, Helen," she said gently. "You should be resting."

But Helen didn't seem to hear. Her gaze seemed suddenly fixed to something, and Maggie followed the line of her sight until she realized what had captured her attention.

It was a child, whose gender was shrouded by the overlarge blanket that staved off the biting cold. Maggie looked back to Helen with a heavy heart, and found her friend trying to focus on something, as if stretching for a memory she couldn't quite reach. Finally her blonde head turned to Maggie.

"There was a child," Helen murmured softly. "A boy… Is—Did he—?"

The question could not quite escape her lips, but Maggie knew its answer nonetheless. Slowly, she shook her head.

"He didn't make it, Helen."

For a long moment, Maggie wondered if the doctor had heard her at all, for she received no response. But then, slowly at first, then more urgently, Helen began to shake. Concern instantly flared within Maggie, and a moment later she was at Helen's side, leading her back towards the infirmary.

Thankfully, or so Maggie assured herself, Helen allowed her to do so, and followed without protest. But when the doctor was once more huddled under a mass of blankets and still shivering, without having said another word, Maggie wished it had been more of a struggle to get her to comply.

At least then she would have had the familiarity of Helen's fighting spirit for comfort.

As it was, the doctor remained unresponsive for the rest of the day, and the remainder of the journey as well. But when the liner pulled into port in New York, the captain of the Carpathia allowed Helen and some of the more shaken passengers to remain on the ship as the others disembarked—under the recommendation of the nurse who had cared for Helen.

Maggie was given the same accord, and she accepted it with gratitude; it would not have felt right leaving Helen on her own, and seeing the crushing mass of departing passengers below on the docks had made her realize that the newly afforded space on the ship was the best possible thing for Helen at the moment.

They waited on the promenade for some time, until the others had finally left the docks. Helen sat silently on one of the deck chairs, clad in a dress that had been donated by another passenger and still cloaked in the ever-present blanket. It was clear she was still shaken by the events of the past few days, and no doubt she was still feeling the physical effects of her prolonged exposure to the frigid water.

But then, just as Maggie was pulled away to converse with the captain, she saw a dark-haired man clad in an impeccably tailored suit climb up the gangway and onto the ship's deck. Outrage burned in Maggie's stomach, thinking the man a reporter seeking the inside story behind the Titanic's fate, but she paused when Helen gently stood to meet him.

She watched as, without a word, Helen took a few shaky steps towards the man, who swiftly closed the rest of the distance before wrapping her in a fierce embrace. Helen's arms remained within the confines of the blanket, but after a stiff moment, she seemed to melt into the man's touch, her head coming to rest on his suit-clad shoulder.

To her consternation, Maggie couldn't discern if the embrace was one of long-lost lovers, or simply one born of kindred spirits and a near-death experience. She was sorry to say their conversations had never managed to broach the topic of romantic interest, so she knew nothing beyond Helen's lack of marital status.

She gave the duo a few moments to themselves before she cautiously approached. As she neared, the dapper man pulled away from Helen—but not without letting his hand brush languidly along the doctor's arm affectionately, Maggie noticed. Helen turned in reaction as well, but her gaze was largely unfocused.

"I'm leaving, Helen," Maggie stated simply. "Is there anything else…?"

Looking at her friend's distant expression, Maggie let her offer hang open-ended. Even if she did need anything, Helen certainly wasn't in any state of mind to let her know. But her male companion skillfully picked up the slack in the conversation.

"Never fear, Miss Brown," he stated in a succinct, but not unkind tone. "I will ensure Doctor Magnus receives the best of care."

Maggie eyed the man suspiciously. "I'm afraid we haven't had the pleasure of meeting before, Mister…"

"Doctor," the man corrected smoothly, lifting her hand as custom dictated. "Doctor James Watson. And I must confess you have my utmost and undying gratitude for all you've done for Helen."

Maggie grinned. "I daresay that does make us friends then, Doctor Watson. Perhaps when Helen feels more herself, you would honor me with a visit for tea later this month."

"We'd be delighted, I'm sure," the man answered for the both of them.

Maggie nodded in approval. "Very well. I shall take my leave, then, and allow the two of you to also get somewhere warm." She glanced to Helen. "Take care," she said softly, to neither of them in particular.

Without waiting for a response, Maggie moved briskly to the edge of the deck where the gangplank led down to the docks. Just before her foot lifted to cross the threshold, a welcome voice issued over the deck.

"Maggie."

When Maggie turned to look back, Helen's beautiful blue eyes were sharp and clear, for the first time in days. It warmed Maggie's heart, and a sense of calm reassurance dulled the fierce chill of the morn. She watched as Helen's head dipped once in a solemn nod.

"Thank you."

There was no falsity in the doctor's tone, no sense of rote that usually accompanied sentiments of gratitude among the upper class. It was simply Helen, a rare friend who spoke only from her heart.

Maggie accepted the words with a nod of her own. "It was my privilege, Doctor Magnus."

And that was all she said before turning and resuming her trek down the long ramp to where her carriage was already waiting at the end of the dock. On her way down, she couldn't help but smile to herself.

"A privilege," she repeated, giving no thought to anyone who might hear. "A privilege indeed."


	3. Chapter 3

It wasn't until the sun was setting later that evening that Will dared to venture anywhere close to Magnus.

To say her outburst had shocked him would have been an understatement. He'd almost been afraid, when he'd seen her drift so close to the edge. Mentioning Ashley and the nightmare of their venture to the Bermuda Triangle in one fell swoop had betrayed how chaotic her mind must have been, and while he'd been expecting it to happen sooner or later, something still felt off.

So he waited until he felt she might have cooled down somewhat, he went in search Magnus, hoping to ease the tension between them before it had a chance to fester. He found her on the balcony of her room, curled on a chaise lounge chair as she watched the sun set.

The view was beautiful, he was sure, but it was utterly lost on him the moment he saw her huddled beneath a thick blanket despite the evening's humid warmth. She seemed pale, even in the orange glow of the setting sun, and her eyes sparkled with what could only be tears.

Carefully, he perched on the edge of the chaise, and reached over to place a hand on her knee, which was pulled tight to her chest, as if to conserve body heat.

"Jesus, Magnus," he breathed in surprise. "You're shivering!"

He wasn't a medical doctor, but even he knew it wasn't normal for anyone to be shivering in this kind of heat. Something wasn't right.

She remained unresponsive for a tense moment, but then, finally, her eyes met his.

"I can't get warm."

Her voice was little more than a whisper, and came so soft, so plaintive that it nearly broke his heart.

In an instant, any lingering misgivings he'd harbored over her treatment of him earlier evaporated, and he shifted closer to her on the lounge, his attention entirely on her as he automatically sought to comfort her. His arms extended, and then without a word she was curled against his chest, trembling in his arms as shivers continued to course through her frame.

To his surprise, she let her head rest against the crook of his neck. Her arms remained buried under the blanket she had wrapped around herself, but it didn't matter. Her protective wall of icy detachment had disappeared, and he could now feel her need for comfort more acutely than any embrace she could have returned.

For a while, he simply held her. She needed to be held, to be comforted, and he was more than happy to be the one she trusted for it. His hand rubbed comfortingly along the length of her blanketed arm, as if in substitute to actually rocking her back and forth. He almost did, to try and counter her continued shivering, but ended up deciding against it. But for all his attempts to soothe her, her frame remained stiff, though he knew it wasn't because of his proximity.

He couldn't explain it, but he knew that she whatever she was trying to battle—it came from within.

"Magnus," he said softly, finally. "I want to help you."

For a long moment, she didn't answer, and he thought she might have drifted off to sleep. But then she curled in on herself just a little bit tighter, and her voice drifted up to him.

"This isn't something you can help, Will."

He sighed. "Maybe not. But sometimes it helps just to talk… And if you want to, I'm here to listen." He hesitated then, but quickly plowed on into the breach. "That's all I was trying to tell you earlier."

Will expected the silence that followed. He would have also expected a belated apology, because it wasn't often that Magnus failed to acknowledge her wrongs once her temper faded. What he did not expect was the sniff that hiccupped through her body.

And suddenly, it was him offering the apology, as though he was the source of her anguish. "Magnus, I'm sorry…"

"It's not your fault, Will," she answered him. Her voice was a little bit stronger this time, and he figured it was to try and reassure him.

As if he was the one who needed reassuring.

Suddenly, the chills wracking her body and the blanket wrapped around her stood out in Will's mind, and something Magnus had said in the stranded helicopter echoed in his ears. Suddenly, it all clicked into place.

"You dreamed about the Titanic, didn't you?"

A moment later he knew he'd made a mistake in asking when she pulled away from him, reinstalling the distance between them. This time, though, she remained sitting, legs pulled up on the chaise in front of her, staring out at the sun dipping below the horizon.

Will turned towards the sunset as well, accepting the change with a chagrined sigh. "Magnus, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up—"

"She wasn't Molly Brown."

Confusion washed over him at her soft interjection. For a moment, he thought he might have heard her wrong, because it didn't make any sense. But when she didn't elaborate, Will took it as an invitation to probe deeper.

"Molly Brown didn't pull you into the life boat?" he asked carefully.

Magnus shook her head no, her dark waves glinting in the fading sunlight. "She did," came the clarification. "But no one ever called her Molly."

Will's brow furrowed. "I don't understand—"

"She was Maggie to her friends, and Margaret to the rest of society." Will listened to the cadence of Magnus' voice, and realized that she was remembering. It was a rare moment, and he savored it, keeping silent. "_The Unsinkable Molly Brown_ was an epithet that was attributed to her after her death."

Helen's gaze fell from the purpling sky, instead focusing on her blanket-covered knees. Her blue eyes, normally sharp and piercing, were now unfocused as she lost herself in the past. And Will let her go, knowing it was what she needed, if she was allowing him to see it.

The last time he had been privy to a moment so private had been when she had told him of John Druitt, and what the man had meant to her before becoming a monster.

"We met the day she boarded in Cherbourg," she continued. "I'd boarded in Southampton, and had expected to spend much of my time working in my stateroom. Anything else would have required mingling with the rest of the class, and at that time I was rather ill thought of."

At Will's look of consternation, she pushed onwards. "I worked for my money, see. I was a practicing doctor, with no husband, no children. Disgraceful for the times…" Her lips curled into the barest hint of a smile. "Molly came to me, complaining of some ailment or other. I don't remember now, but it was all a ruse in the end; an excuse to get the chance to investigate the woman who was considered more of a stigma than she, with her new money and strong ideas."

"Sounds like an incredible woman," Will remarked softly.

Magnus finally looked over at him, eyes sparkling as she smiled. "Oh, she was," she breathed. "She was a pioneer for the underdog, for anyone less fortunate, myself included. She drew me out, urged me to socialize—and where I had learned to simply ignore the whispers and the looks, Maggie possessed absolutely no qualms about calling attention to their rude behavior.

"And she absolutely refused to let me call her Margaret. She said that her name with my accent simply made her sound too stuffy." Blue eyes drifted away again, as Helen's lips pressed together in a terse line. "We'd only known each other for a matter of days, when she found me that night and pulled me from the water. But our friendship lasted until the end of her days, when she died twenty years later."

In the evening light, Will saw Magnus' eyes darken, though they didn't quite lose their sparkle of fondness at the memories she was visiting. Her gaze fell to the threads of the blanket covering her knees, and her long fingers worried the tassles of the blanket's fringe relentlessly.

"She made me her personal physician, but it was mostly just in name only. She was never one for admitting weakness, especially in herself. In that way, she very much was unsinkable."

Will grinned. "A quality the two of you shared," he concurred. Magnus' eyes turned to him sharply, but her gaze was anything but angry.

"Quite," she agreed simply. There was no use denying it. "In the end, it was a brain tumor that finally killed her. I found it when I did the autopsy." Her voice was suddenly thick, and her accent deepened, just like it always did when she was trying to hold back tears—after Ashley, Will was familiar with the subtle changes in her voice.

"At the time, there was no way to look for cancer, especially not in the brain. For a long time, I blamed myself for not being able to find it sooner—that maybe if I had, she would have had more years. But eventually I realized, on top of her not wanting me to blame myself, I wouldn't have been able to do anything for her even if I had discovered the cancer earlier. She'd had a longer life than most in those times, and she'd made sure she did a great many things in the time she had."

Will nodded, as if in understanding, though really, he couldn't begin to imagine what it must have been like. His overactive mind wondered if Molly—_Maggie_—had ever questioned Helen's agelessness. If they were friends for twenty years, then it would have been obvious that Magnus was different. And if Molly had indeed started asking questions, she would have gotten answers.

And then he had to wonder, if Maggie Brown had known about the Sanctuary and all the wonders that Helen Magnus worked to save. If she'd gotten the chance to see all of the beauty she'd saved by saving Magnus.

"Magnus, the Titanic… that's huge. I can't imagine what it would be like to live through such a disaster."

For a long moment, Magnus didn't say a word. Her gaze returned to the deepening sunset, and her expression softened. Finally, her head turned side to side, denying his platitude.

"It's funny, you know," she voiced gingerly. "How a single word can embody such an overbearing concept. Now, when someone mentions the Titanic, they think of calamity, one of the greatest tragedies in history."

"And you don't." It didn't really come out like the question he'd intended, but Will didn't mind, and neither did Magnus.

"No, I don't. I remember the newspaper clippings, and the fantastic rumors that abounded about this latest, marvelous feat of engineering. I think of Southampton, there on the docks, and looking up at the colossal hull of a brand new cruise liner. It was to be the best and brightest of trans-Atlantic travel, and even at port, it certainly seemed it would be."

A wistful smile crossed her features for the briefest of moments. "To me, the Titanic is fresh paint and varnish. It's the sense of wonder that filled me when I first laid eyes on it." She gave Will a look he could not quite interpret. "I was sixty at that point, and just breaching the point in my life when my friends were dying and I still looked like—" She paused, hesitating. Her lips curled into a wistful smile."Well, like me. For the longest time, there was a shadow over my heart, and I was actually beginning to regret taking the Source blood."

She sighed heavily. "I was traveling to join the newly founded New York Sanctuary, hoping that being across the ocean would help ease the pain of seeing others I'd gone to school with grow crippled with age. James was already there, waiting for me. It was to be a new start, and seeing the Titanic that day… It was the first time I fully grasped that immortality meant more than seeing everyone around me die. It meant I would get the chance to see humanity accomplish great things."

"Do you still think that?" Will inquired. "I mean, it must've been hard keeping that insight with you after… after the ship went down."

Magnus' expression darkened once more, and Will instinctively knew they were about to encroach on dangerous territory. He only hoped she stayed with him, continued to let it out. This nightmare… it had shaken her more than he'd ever seen before, and he doubted that it had included the happier memories of Margaret Brown.

Things were about to get heavy, and he would be lucky if Helen didn't shut herself off again.

He watched as her chin lowered to her knees, her eyes closing against images she didn't want to see. Her breathing hitched in her chest ever so lightly, and he felt his heart go out to her. He wanted to protect, but he knew this needed to happen.

"I never made it to the life rafts," she whispered. "Such panic—it was pure chaos, Will. I'd never seen anything like it before—or since."

"I've read some of the reports from the Titanic, when I was in college," Will said, his voice gentle. "They said all the female, first-class passengers made it to the lifeboats. You would have been given preference…"

Magnus nodded. "I would have, I suppose. I was tending to someone who gotten injured in the panic, and then…" Her voice drifted off, and she pulled the blanket tighter around her as a shudder passed over her shoulders. "The water… it was so cold. Such an unnatural cold… I was swept of the deck when the ship sank, and—"

Her voice caught in her throat, and she buried her nose and chin in the blanket, as if it were a shield against the horror of that night.

A tear escaped her closed eyes, and traced an icy trail down her cheek. Will remained silent, listening to the harrowing tale with the respect it deserved—and the quiet she needed to tell it.

"Sometimes, when the colder nights are absolutely, deathly silent, I can still hear the screams," she continued. "And when the reports came out later, and I truly saw how improper the evacuation had been—I nearly lost my mind. So many deaths… So much needless loss. I couldn't believe it."

Will could detect a distinct bitterness to her tone, and he didn't blame her. He'd read the books in school, watched the movies… even from such a distant viewpoint, he himself had been angry at the complete waste of lives the disaster had claimed. But then again, it was easy to point fingers after the fact, especially when it had been so long before his time.

"But the lifeboats," he said, finally speaking up. "They came back."

She shook her head, using the blanket to dry the tears from her eyes. "Not soon enough."

"Then how did Maggie…?"

"There but for the grace of God," Magnus murmured. "It was a miracle she found us. We'd tried to swim to the rafts—I couldn't trust that they would come back to us in time. It was pitch-black, and we never made it to where the rafts had been tied together."

She stared at the fabric of the blanket, as if seeking solace in the pattern of the woven threads. "Maggie even said once that she had nearly passed us by. She saw the fog of my breath out of the corner of her eye, made them turn back around…"

Will's gut clenched painfully. He'd never really considered how close Magnus might have come to dying, and to hear it now made him nauseous.

As always, his thoughts darted ahead at warp speed, until he was seeing his mother being slashed by the monster he'd seen when he was eight, and then the monster turned on him, because Magnus hadn't been there to save him.

He considered the Big Guy, and the sepulcher that had housed his body only weeks ago. Only this time, the sepulcher was nothing more than a hastily dug grave, with no marker—hunters had killed him, because Helen hadn't been around to stop them.

He forced himself to stop thinking, to stop wondering. That hadn't happened. She'd lived, she'd saved them. That mattered more than the what-could-have-beens. Looking back at Magnus now, he saw her eyes were shadowed and haunted.

"There's something else, isn't there?"

Blue eyes lifted to meet his, and after a moment, she nodded. "A boy," she whispered thickly, as the tears returned. "A child, separated from his parents. I tried to help him, but…" Her voice gave out for a moment, but she cleared her throat and pressed on, as much for his sanity as her own. "He froze before we could get to the rafts. I don't how long he'd been dead against my back, because I never noticed…"

Finally, the sob she'd been refusing to voice escaped her, as more tears joined the first. Horror, guilt, and remorse all mingled in her gaze for a brief moment before she closed her eyes tight against the pain.

Before he even realized what he was doing, his arms were around her once more, pulling her close. She came willingly, collapsing into his embrace as sobs wracked her body. Within moments his shirt grew damp, but he barely noticed, her grief was so overwhelming. It permeated the very air around them, making his own eyes water in empathy.

"It's all right," he whispered. "Everything's all right now."

"No, it's not," she spat, as though the words were bitter on her tongue. "It's wrong, it's all wrong! I should have done something, I could have saved him, if only—" She cut herself off abruptly, shaking her head to dispel the what ifs. But then her mask crumbled, and her brow furrowed as her lips quivered, fighting back the tears that threatened. "Ashley was there. In the water."

Will froze, the swift turnaround in conversation throwing him momentarily. "Your dream?"

She nodded against him. "Beneath the water… The ship's wake was pulling her under, and I tried to go after her, but I couldn't reach her." Fresh wounds opened, and Will felt the pain of the all-too-recent loss as sharply as if Ashley had died yesterday. "She was so frightened, Will."

"It was a dream, Magnus."

"Was it?" She pulled away just enough make eye contact once more. "Didn't I fail her just as I failed that little boy? She's dead—"

"Because of the Cabal," Will clarified. His tone gave no room for debate. "What happened was horrible, Magnus, and we all felt it. But it wasn't your fault. You didn't fail anybody. Not Ashley, and not that kid. You nearly gave your life for both of them, and it was only because of her love for you that Ashley did what she did in the end. That's far from failing in any capacity."

This time, there was no response. Eventually, her sobs quieted, and her breathing evened out, but Will could still feel the tears falling to his shirt. Every so often the sound of a sniff drifted up to him, and he refused to let her go. He tried not to let the moment feel so surreal, but part of him knew that this was completely outside the norm of Helen Magnus.

With Ashley and Watson gone, Will doubted there was anyone Magnus would allow this vulnerability to surface in front of. Maybe Druitt, once upon a time, but he hadn't been seen since he'd started his rampage on the remaining Cabal operatives.

But Will counted himself lucky—not only for the honor of having earned her trust, but because he was preventing the whole of his world from crumbling down around him.

If Magnus hadn't found release, hadn't trusted him enough to let go of the guilt—it would have consumed her. She would have broken, and without her, the family he'd found only too recently would have fallen apart. And then… he would have been alone again.

By now, the sun had disappeared completely, and the first stars could be seen in the deepening dark.

"Tell me what happened after you were rescued," Will encouraged softly. Tell me about the life that followed, he wanted to say. Remind us both that life prevails.

For a long moment, he thought she would disregard him, having spent all her energy already. But to his surprise, she did answer.

"I awoke on the Carpathia," she said softly. "Maggie was there. She stayed at my bedside until I regained consciousness, before she went off to rally the other girls into helping with relief efforts." Her voice trembled. "I shook for weeks. I couldn't get warm. It was like the chill had settled in my bones and stayed there." She gave a short, deprecating laugh. "Poor James was nearly at his wit's end. He couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, beyond hysteria. But, I had never been one for hysteria, so I daresay I confounded him."

"Post traumatic stress," Will supplied. Magnus nodded.

"Most likely," she agreed. "But back then, nobody knew it as that, and they certainly didn't know how to treat it. James simply did his best, and to my luck, his best was good enough. I eventually recovered, but…"

She didn't need to finish, because Will understood. The pain fades, but it never goes away. Like his mom's death, it would stay with her, always just under the surface.

"You're a survivor, Magnus," he said softly. "You've lived through a lot, and not just because of the Source blood. It's who you are."

There was a moment's pause, before he felt her lips press into a line against his shoulder. She shook her head.

"No, Will, I'm not," she said quietly. "I'm just a passenger—always have been."

That was all she offered, and he didn't ask for more.

They let the silence settle upon them, inviting the night sounds of the city below to surround them. Every now and then, Will could hear voices drift up to them. It was a subtle reassurance, a reminder that the world continued on, even when one thought it never could. In the face of such loss, such pain, it was an important distinction.

A warm hand emerged from the beneath the blanket, and the movement startled Will from his reverie. But when long fingers curled around his own, he squeezed back, offering silent comfort.

"I miss her so much."

The whisper barely reached his ears, and he said nothing in return. But his thumb traced light circles on the skin of her hand, conveying all the reassurance he possibly could in a single touch. And all the promise as well, because that was what he was doing.

He would be there for her. For as long as she would let him, he would be there.


	4. Chapter 4

To be honest, James had expected Helen's emotional distance.

He'd learned decades ago that it was how she dealt with hardship, with events she could not make sense of. She'd withdrawn from him, and the rest of the world, when John's madness had taken control of him. But even then, he had been able to pull her out of her state, and he was confident that this too would pass, so long as he refused to let her sink too far into herself.

What he did not expect, however, was the experience of coming home one afternoon from tending to an emergency at the newly founded sanctuary, only to find his oldest friend collapsed on the floor in a dead faint. And he surely didn't expect to find her not breathing.

He had been lucky enough to keep his wits about him long enough to relieve her corset—propriety be damned—upon which she immediately began to cough for air. Unlike his literary namesake, James was not a medical doctor, but even he had known the harsh, wracking coughs that left Helen breathless were not a good sign.

A physician had been called in, and all it took was a touch of her fevered brow and the sound of her labored breathing for him to diagnose pneumonia.

The moment the word passed the man's lips, James' heart had twisted in fear. Pneumonia was veritably unknown, and untreatable. All he knew was that death came slow, and painfully, as the patient inevitably drowned in the fluid filling their lungs.

Suddenly, the concept of Helen dying was thrust in his face once more. He'd thought he'd dodged a bullet when she had somehow survived the disaster at sea—he should have known better. For one purportedly adept at seeing the unseeable, he'd been hopelessly blind in regards to her potential for contracting an illness.

But Helen was the physician—and she hadn't said a word about her distress. She'd been silent and reserved since he had retrieved her from the Carpathia, and he had attributed her pale visage to her shock. A discernable physical malady hadn't even crossed his mind.

And now he was a permanent figure at Helen's bedside, watching helplessly as her condition steadily worsened.

Over the course of a week, her temperature had skyrocketed, and her ever-thinning frame was tormented by bone-rattling coughs that yielded bloody sputum. Her breath came short and rapid, shallow as they tried to pull in enough air. It broke his heart, seeing her in such distress.

But as much as it pained him to see her suffering, he refused to leave her, and he patiently, adoringly cared for her the best he could.

He mopped the damp from her brow, and held her hand through the fever-induced nightmares, as she thrashed beneath her blankets muttering pleas for mercy and the ominous utterances of John's name. The doctor had inserted an intravenous line into a vein in Helen's hand, to help ward off dehydration, but even so he pressed a glass of water to her lips every now and then, when he believed her strong enough to stomach it.

More often than not the water came up later when she retched, and in those moments he helped her to sit upright, and pulled her hair out of the way for her. By that point she had weakened past the point of recognizing him, or even acknowledging his aid. But he held her anyway, bracing her trembling form with his own.

He tried not to dwell on her deathly pallor, or on the disquieting rattle he could hear in her chest with each breath she took.

When simply looking at her became too painful, he took to reading aloud, his voice loud enough to be discerned above her labored breathing. He even stooped to reading the mysteries of Sherlock Holmes, if only in the hope she would become coherent enough to give the wry smirk she always gave when the subject was mentioned.

She'd never fully understood why he'd insisted that Holmes' character not bear his own name. But, true to form, she'd always claimed Watson was far more astute than Holmes ever gave him credit for in any case. The sidekick was her preferred character of the two, never mind that Holmes was the true Watson.

It drove him mad, but then, she knew that. And thus it was the source of her delight in the whole thing.

But even that wasn't enough to ease her suffering. He continued to watch as her health deteriorated. Eventually, he turned to their work for answers. He called for all of their notes, all of their studies to be brought to him, and he pored through the tomes, searching for any hint, any whisper of a treatment, elixir, or Abnormal that could help.

He found none, nothing that could be obtained in time.

She was fading too quickly, her unique physiology doing nothing to help her. They'd already discerned the Blood had not enhanced her healing abilities, had known for over a decade now. He'd always known this outcome was possible—even probable with the work they did—but still he had already become attached, reliant on the idea that she would be with him through the ages.

And now he was faced with the inevitable reality of being alone.

John was dead as far as they knew. Nigel was already aged, and had been out of contact with them for years. And Nikola… well, James didn't much care where the vampire was. He'd been insufferable enough as a human, and his less than endearing qualities had only been amplified by the effects of the Source blood. And as they'd all slipped away through the years, only Helen had remained a constant.

A constant he was now terrified of losing.

But just as he'd resigned himself to being the one to bury Helen Magnus, he was surprised once again.

He hadn't expected to wake up one morning, nearly three weeks after the sinking of the Titanic, to hear absolutely nothing. His heart had twisted painfully when he no longer heard the tortuous wheezes, the gasps for air… And when he'd seen her lying so still on the bed, so perfectly peaceful, he was sure that she was finally gone.

And he was surprised when he felt relief mingled with the ache. Relief that she was no longer suffering, no longer faced with the curse of longevity. She hadn't said anything, but he'd seen the toll it had begun to take on her—the realization that the opportunity to live forever meant more than being ageless, more than staying young.

It meant being static, while the world changed around you. It meant being an observer, the witness to the world as events came and went, affecting all but you, because you knew from experience that the next one was right around the corner.

He had seen the shadow in her eyes, before he'd left London for the new American Sanctuary. Even when she had smiled and teased him to not pine too much before she came and joined him, he'd seen the bittersweet truth.

He would never have to pine her, or mourn her. He'd believed she would always be there.

How wrong he had been.

Finally, as the growing light of dawn threw sparkling shafts of light through the gaps in the curtains, James looked to the bed, where Helen lay still as stone.

Her skin was pale, and her features lax in peaceful repose. A slender hand lay motionless on the bedspread, cushioned by the thick duvet. Her eyes, thankfully, were closed—he wasn't sure he could have kept himself together had he seen her beautiful blue eyes glassy and lifeless.

And as much as he'd tried to prepare himself for this very eventuality, James felt his eyes begin to burn. His vision wavered, the image of Helen's body distorting to the point that he almost missed seeing the small flicker of movement as her fingers flexed ever so slightly.

In an instant, his eyes cleared, and he was sitting beside her on the bed, gathering her hand in both of his. Sharp eyes scoured her for any other signs of life, and then, after a long, breathless moment, he saw her chest rise.

She was breathing.

Elation lifted his heart as his fingers pressed lightly against her neck, and when the soft flutter of that reassuring beat made itself stubbornly known, he nearly laughed in relief.

True relief, this time.

True, complete, utter relief.

His fingers left her neck to cup her cheek gently. To his delight, she turned into his touch with a quiet murmur. Her skin was damp with sweat, as were the sheets around her, but the fever had broken. Now that he was listening more carefully, he could hear that her breath still rasped slightly, but it was still a vast improvement from even the night before.

The worst had passed.

She had survived.

"Dear god, Helen," he said softly. "Open your eyes." He tried not to plead, but was not successful, and ultimately he didn't care. "Please, Helen." He stroked her cheek tenderly. "Look at me."

He watched her lashes flutter at his persistence, and then, finally, blue eyes emerged from their slumber. The last of the tension abandoned his body when they shone up at him, blessedly clear of the feverish haze that had clouded them for so long.

After a moment of struggle, she managed to focus on him.

"James…"

Her voice was hoarse, as he'd expected it should be, and he could hear the last of her congestion in the thickness of her tone. But even so, the sound of it was like music to his ears.

"Oh, Helen," he breathed in relief. He pressed a kiss to her fingers, which he had yet to relinquish. "Thank god." He smoothed a tendril of curls from her brow. "Are you in any pain?" he asked carefully.

She blinked tiredly. "So cold…"

Not quite the answer he'd been expecting. But she was obviously still disoriented for all her vast improvement, and he supposed that in her currently drenched bedclothes, she could feel the slightest of drafts.

When he felt her begin to shiver, he blindly groped for the throw that lay at the foot of the bed, and pulled it closer to cover her trembling frame.

"There," he voiced softly. He watched her eyes grow heavy, and knew it wouldn't be long before she drifted off to sleep once more. But even he, non-physician as he is, knew that sleep could only do her good. She needed rest, the sooner the better.

"James…" His name sounded on her lips once again, and he gave her fingers a comforting squeeze.

"Sleep now, Helen," he encouraged. "I'll be here when you wake."

Her eyes drifted shut, and James felt satisfaction fill him. She would be all right. And he would wait for her, with her, as he had since collecting her at the docks.

Because now, once again, they had all the time in the world.


End file.
